Charles C. Goodwin

A 22 year old farmer in Wells, he enlisted in Augusta on 21 October 1861 and mustered as a Private in Company I, 1st Maine Cavalry on 31 October. He was promoted to Corporal on 1 March 1862 and was assigned as orderly to General Porter until 2nd Manassas, where he reported to General Pope.

On 14 September he was delivering a message to General Reno when that officer was shot.

[I]n the temporary confusion incident to the death of Gen. Reno, his body would have fallen into rebel hands but for Sergt. Goodwin, who in a storm of bullets led back the wd. steed and dead rider.

He was promoted to Sergeant in October 1862, was wounded at Rappahannock Station, VA on 23 October 1863 and was captured in action near Winchester, VA on 23 July 1864 but escaped on 29 July. He mustered out in Augusta, ME at the expiration of his term of service on 25 November 1864.

By 1874 he was living in Cape Elizabeth, ME and was in Portland by 1890. At the 1910 Census he was a widower living in a rented room in Portland. He had been a railroad mail clerk before he was admitted to the US National Home for Disabled Volunteer Soldiers at Togus, ME in July 1912 and he died there in September.

His service from Tobie,1 source also of the quote above. Personal details from the records of the US Home.

He had a son Harrison M. Goodwin.

A photo exhibit of his wartime Colt revolver is online from the reenactors of the First Maine Cavalry. It may be (or may have been) in the small museum at the Washington Monument State Park on South Mountain, MD.

c. 1839; Wells, ME

09/27/1912; Togus, ME; burial in Portland, ME